


stay and try and out-drink me

by rpluslequalsj



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: 30 seconds later, 4x01, F/F, Fluff, Littering, post 3x08
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24597412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rpluslequalsj/pseuds/rpluslequalsj
Summary: They take turns throwing things into the Thames.Eve makes mental sticky notes while waiting for Villanelle to kiss her.Oksana hedges, but it’s okay.They have time now.OrTwo Gals Chillin On A Foot Bridge Zero Feet Apart Because They’re Gay
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 35
Kudos: 182





	stay and try and out-drink me

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 1 weekaversary to the bridge scene! I'm going through major withdrawals.

It takes Eve twenty-eight steps to meet her halfway, which means it had taken Eve twenty-eight steps to go back on her decision to leave Villanelle behind, to walk away forever—and God, what a loaded word that was. It meant millions of steps. It meant decades, thousands of miles, thousands of faces, any direction—north, south, east, west, left, right, as long as that direction also meant away. Forever meant never again.

In reality, forever had lasted just shy of thirty steps.

Well, the two of them did always have a flair for the dramatic.

I tried, Eve thinks, not at all sarcastically, because it had taken her twenty-eight steps when it should have taken her zero.

When her heels come together, the tips of her shoes graze those of Villanelle’s boots, and she’s right back where she started. Not five minutes ago, they had stood facing opposite directions. Eve had stood ramrod straight, as still as her insides were not. Villanelle had leaned back against her, like someone who was tired from a long walk and was taking a must-needed rest, but still had an endless journey ahead. In the shift of the shoulders pressed against her back, Eve could feel Villanelle’s every inhale, every exhale. If she had wanted to put all of her weight on Eve and rest against her forever, Eve would have let her. Villanelle had meant for them to be two rays on a graph, continuing on infinitely 180 degrees apart, never to cross paths again. 

They had stood back to back. Now, they stand face to face. It feels like the start of the rest of their endless journey, but together.

“Eve.”

She will never tire of the way Villanelle says her name, the way she draws out the single syllable of Eve like she wants to savor it for eternity, a fruit of the garden of Eden. Her tongue and teeth snake and bite around the sound of it like they want to explore every curve and edge of every letter. Eve Eve Eve.

“Villanelle.” Eve will never tire of saying Villanelle’s name, either.

“No.”

“No?”

“Yes, but,” Villanelle’s eyebrows and shoulders raise and lower in a synchronized shrug, “I missed hearing you say the other one.” It’s another addition to the growing list of unexpected but welcome admissions made between them in the last twelve hours. They’ve never given pieces of themselves to the other so freely. It’s refreshing.

“...Oksana.” Villanelle smiles. Just the corner of her mouths lifts up, splits to expose a sliver of white teeth. Like she doesn’t mean to smile, but her face can’t help it. It’s shy.

Eve wants to see it grow bigger. She tries again, enunciating every syllable in a signature American butchery of Russian pronunciation. “Oksana Astankova.”

It’s auditory murder, and it does the trick. Villanelle’s smile broadens to the horizons of her face, her lips wide, her cheeks full, and her eyes crinkled at the corners. “One more time,” she requests. “Please,” she tacks on in an English accent. Eve indulges her, decides to show off.

“Oksana Sylviana Natalia Marta Billie Marie Morgan Vorontsova Astankova.”

Villanelle’s jaw drops and her eyebrows skyrocket: an excellent facsimile of shock and scandal. Like her guns, knives, and disguises, Villanelle wields her facial expressions like a weapon. Eve has catalogued what she could of that arsenal in the little time she’s spent up close with Villanelle. This one consists of furrowed brows, a mouth open in a gasp, eyes widened a little too comically to be genuine, and glance to the side to an invisible third party.

And to think Eve really thought she could give her up, even for just a few minutes.

“Are you a fan of my work, Eve Polastri?” Villanelle asks conspiratorially.

Eve shakes her head. “No,” she mirrors.

She’s going to miss the way Villanelle divides the syllables of her last name, uttering it in a triplet beat, like the steady rhythm of a drum. Eve will miss the way her lips let escape the hushed hiss of the ‘s’, the way her accent and her tongue roll the ‘r’ and click the ‘t’. Po-las-tri Po-las-tri Po-las-tri.

“No?”

“Well, yes to your question, but,” she clarifies, “my maiden name is Yang.”

“Like the Grey’s Anatomy character.” Former assassin, clumsy dancer, and pop culture extraordinaire. It wasn't what Eve meant when she said Villanelle was many things, but she wasn't lying.

“Asshole,” Eve retorts, but it lacks bite. She fills it with affection; it spills over. “Like I didn’t hear that a thousand times in college.”

“Don’t worry,” Villanelle reassures. “Cristina might be a doctor, but your hair is better.”

Eve laughs. Villanelle probably already knew, anyway. She was snoopy, even snoopier than Eve. Hell, she probably knew Eve’s entire educational history, blood type, social security number. She makes a note to ask Villanelle for her credit score later, to test her hypothesis, and also because she hasn’t checked in a while. It'd be killing two birds with one stone.

The quip passes, and a lull settles between them. Eve can tell there's something swimming just underneath the surface. There are things Villanelle wants to say, something she wants to do. She’ll let her take her time. It won't take all that long—she knows Villanelle to be impatient and, eventually, she’ll break the silence and take the conversation where she wants it to go. If she needs encouragement, though, Eve will give it to her.

She slips the wedding ring off her finger and unceremoniously drops it over the rail. The splash of the small trinket, representative of a promise long broken, are no match for the sounds of London, the wind, and the Thames combined in concert. Eve doesn’t hear when it breaks the surface of the river, if it does at all. For all she knows, her wedding ring, like her marriage, dissolved into the void.

“Eve! You could have pawned that,” Villanelle chastises, but the look of concern on her face is plainly artificial. She isn't even trying. “At least make some money out of it.”

Eve snorts. “Please. You could not be any happier right now.”

“Do you see this face? I am aghast.” She does. Eve would have believed her, if Eve didn't know her.

But right now, they’re also trying something new, now that they’ve chosen each other. Something called having honest conversations. Old habits die hard, but Eve knows from experience that their old pattern of half-truths and words unsaid would have them die harder, with a bullet to the back. They have time to practice now, so Eve will practice, even if it’s like pulling teeth.

“Listen,” she starts, waits until Villanelle drops the mask and looks at her again. “You’ve bought me clothes that fit me perfectly, so I know you observe every detail about me. If you could take my measurements with your eyes—“

“You have excellent proporti—” she places a hand on Villanelle’s cheek, because the one time she did it before, in a kitchen, under different circumstances, it had silenced the assassin. It works again: the former assassin shuts up. Eve makes a mental note of this new power, one she intends to wield frequently and freely. She draws a circle with her thumb against Villanelle’s cheekbone. Villanelle leans into the touch, though she frowns. “Your hand is cold.”

“—then you definitely noticed I still wore my ring even though my husband had left me for good. It’s taken you a lot of self-control to keep from asking about it. Now that it’s gone, forever, you could not possibly be any happier than you are at this moment. Later, it’s going to take you even more self-control to keep yourself from buying me something to replace it, but you’re going to do it anyway, and if I ask you what it’s for, you’re going to deny it.” Villanelle scoffs, but smiles. She doesn’t refute a single part of it.

“You can talk about me all day, huh, Eve Yang?” Villanelle teases, and wow, okay, Eve can get used to that lazy drawl against her maiden name. Villanelle’s eyes flash, and Eve knows Villanelle can tell exactly what she’s thinking.

“Yeah, I can,” Eve agrees, trying to keep the upper hand. “Want me to keep going?”

“Mmmmm, nope." She pops the 'p'. "Maybe later. I want to do you now.” Eve tilts her head slightly, acknowledges the double entendre. It's a good one. “I will try to give you the good news, bad news sandwich, really ease you into it. Ready?”

“Sure.” Villanelle leans harder into the hand cupping her face, nuzzles into it, then shifts away from Eve to lean back against the railing. She gazes up at the city sky, then—she just goes for it.

“You have an amazing body, you know that, but you insist on covering it in Marks and Spencer. It doesn’t matter to me what you wear, but it’s like having a nice car and keeping it in the garage and never driving it, you know? You miss out on an experience and you deprive the world of something beautiful. I used to think it was because you were insecure, but now I think you just have bad taste, which is a much easier obstacle to overcome. I can teach you, if you want. We can go shopping, expand your options beyond turtlenecks.”

“Sounds kind of nice,” Eve says, echoing a sentiment from earlier in the day. Villanelle smiles. “What else?”

“Did you know today was the first time you smiled at me?” She pauses, lets it sink in, lets Eve furrow her brows and flip through all her memories with Villanelle. She’s...right. “It’s funny, because you have always thought that I am hilarious. You used to pretend to be annoyed when I made you laugh, but today you finally stopped pretending. It's a good look on you. You should let me make you smile more often.”

She’s right. Villanelle is funny, bizzarely, endearingly, irritatingly so. Eve jots another note in her mind, a reminder to tell Villanelle that she would have made a better standup comedian than an interior designer.

“What else?”

“I know the biggest reason you were always so scared to admit you liked me. It wasn’t because you were scared that we were alike. It was because if I finally had you, you were convinced I would lose interest. What then? Where would that have left you?”

“Would you?” Eve asks. It’s not accusatory. Either way, she’d already made her choice twenty-eight steps ago.

“I think...I have never been allowed the luxury of loving a woman long enough to find that out.” Villanelle shrugs. “I guess that’s what happens when your type is married women.” They both know that isn’t the issue, but Eve follows along with Villanelle's unspoken request for levity. They can earmark this for later.

“Not anymore,” Eve reminds her.

“You still have to file for divorce,” Villanelle reminds her. Shit. She really does. “But throwing your ring away is pretty close. Good literary symbolism.”

“What else?”

“I knew you would turn around.”

“How?”

“Because, so many things. You have left two men to die because finding me was more important to you. Because you would die of embarrassment when you realized that our first and only kiss was with our eyes open in the back of a bus that smelled like piss. And because...you just like me too much.”

Eve knows she’s been quiet for too long when Villanelle frowns.

“Too much? You can’t take the dish?” Another mental sticky note, this one for them to go over English idioms later.

The admission comes easily, freely, without Eve’s usual instinct to hide, deflect, deny: “No, that was good. You’re right. All of it.”

Villanelle takes her bottom lip in between her teeth, sucks in a breath.

“Ask me what else.”

“What else?”

“I knew you would turn around eventually, but I didn’t know if it would be today, or six months from now. You are stubborn. You are really, really stubborn.” She screws her eyes shut. “I really needed you to choose me today.”

“I did.”

“You did.” Villanelle opens her eyes. In the lighting of the bridge, they look wet. She sniffs. “People cry when they are happy and when they are sad. It makes no sense. Absolutely psychopathic.” Villanelle blinks her eyes clear, then schools her face back into something more composed. She takes Eve’s cold hand into her very warm ones, brings to the space between their bodies, fiddles with the ring finger. Villanelle waggles her eyebrows.

“So, Eve Yang,” Villanelle drawls, again, knowing exactly what she’s doing. “I basically just rehearsed my vows. Is there a Mrs. Yang?”

Eve laughs. “You want my last name?”

“I want whatever you will give me.” Christ. Eve had long ago learned that Villanelle punctuated, rarely, but abruptly, her stretches of humor and deflection with truth. She hid them in plain sight, everything blended together, and sifting through the differences was a game only Eve had attempted to play.

It feels like forever ago that Villanelle had pressed the point of a dagger against her chest, asked Eve if she would give her everything she wanted. They've both changed since then, but Eve finds that her answer hasn’t. Villanelle has already taken so much from her. Eve wants to give her the rest.

“What if I want yours?” Eve shoots back. “Is there a Mrs. Astankova?”

Villanelle starts, then hesitates. 

Eve is confused—it was a rhetorical question. “What?”

“Technically I took her last name, but I am legally dead, and it ended at the reception, so it doesn’t really count.”

“...What?”

“You were married too! Now we are even.”

Eve concedes. She can’t argue with the mathematics.

“Villanelle Yang,” Eve says, slowly, tests the name on her tongue.

“Eve Astankova.”

“That sounds... nice, actually.”

“We can do double barrels too. We are modern women.”

Another silence falls upon them, comfortable, but tentative. Their hands are still clasped.

It’s getting late and the wind is getting colder. They’ll have to leave the bridge soon. Eve wants to do something first, though.

Like a mind-reader, Villanelle says, “It’s getting late. Do you want to go somewhere warmer? We can go back to your apartment, or my hotel. My place is a lot nicer." She teases, but Eve has no attachment to that apartment. She will readily admit it’s a dump.

“We, huh?”

“You’re the one who turned around.”

Eve takes her in, drinks in the silhouette of her: the oversized mustard coat, the sleek updo of this afternoon that’s been tousled by the wind and the day’s events, the halo of errant honey blonde strands framing her face. Her cheeks are dusted pink by the wind chill, and maybe something else. She looks like sunshine in the dark.

"Are you cold?"

“Eve, I am Russian.” For someone who hates even the idea of speaking Russian ever again, she sure likes to clings to her heritage when it’s convenient. “Plus, assassin training makes you learn the limits of your body.”

“Let’s stay a little longer.”

“Okay. We can hang out here. Chillax.” Villanelle drops their hands. They both turn and face the water again, leaning against the railing with their hands clasped on top, like two people trying to keep their hands off each other.

This kind of normalcy is unfamiliar. It’s never been afforded to them, this luxury of each others’ presence without a countdown looming above their heads. They stand in quiet, but not for lack of things to talk about—conversations with Villanelle are living things: her anecdotes and asides take root in Eve’s mind, grow branches and blooms, springing paths of further inquiry to climb deeper, higher, or broader. There are endless things to talk about. They have time.

For now, Eve is content to enjoy this new privilege of being able to just relax in Villanelle's presence. This isn't another encounter with an expiration date set by a kitchen timer, where she and Villanelle exchange words, or blows, or both, then separate, pulled apart by the wills of MI6 and The Twelve. They have done that dance. Villanelle is here, a solid form next to her, has been for the past half hour. When Eve leaves this bridge, Villanelle will still be right beside her.

"Hey."

Villanelle bumps her hip. "Hey."

"Wanna know something?"

"Everything." Wow. What a sap.

“Close your eyes and give me your hand.” She obeys instantly. If Eve had said jump, Villanelle probably would have asked how high. If Eve were to try to reconcile this woman before her with the one that shot her and left her for dead not even a year ago, she’s going to give herself a headache. That’s a thought—no, a conversation, for later.

Eve considers the hand held out in front of her. Villanelle holds it palm face up, displaying for Eve to see the slopes of her heart, head, and life lines, their points of intersection and divergence. Eve will carve time out later to study them further. Her fingers are relaxed, curled slightly. Her nails are neatly manicured and unpainted. They’re short, Eve notes, and suddenly feels the need to clip her own.

It’s an extremely capable hand. It’s a hand that’s stolen, snapped necks, slit throats, pulled triggers, stabbed friends. It’s a hand that’s killed. It’s been soaked in and washed of blood countless times, but its body count is an indelible stain.

Right now, though, it’s just a hand, open and waiting for Eve.

“Eve?” Villanelle’s eyes are still closed. The only sign of consternation she shows are her furrowed brows, as if she’s worrying if Eve had played a cruel trick and decided after all to leave.

“Uh, just hang on a minute.” Eve rummages through her bag, feeling for the familiar contours of the object. “Ah-ha!”

Eve fishes out her prize, places it in Villanelle's open palm and, covering Villanelle's hands with her own, squeezes them together. The motion activates the sound that Eve has become all-too familiar with. Villanelle’s eyes fly open.

"Admit it, Eve, you wish I was here."

“Guess my wish came true,” Eve jokes. She’d retrieved the silver platter herself, put her own head on it, and offered herself up to Villanelle. She waits for her to notice the degraded quality of the voice, indicative of a dying battery. She waits for her to notice the worn texture of the plastic. She waits for the teasing, waits to be asked, “How many time did you touch yourself to this?”

Villanelle says nothing. She turns away from Eve, towards the water. She winds her arm back, and chucks the heart far, far beyond the railing. What the fuck? That was Eve's!

"What the—are we just throwing my things into the river now?" Villanelle rolls her shoulders, clearly pleased with herself.

“This arm won a dung-throwing contest. It is a cannon.” It’s the worst non-sequitur and non-answer if Eve’s ever heard one. She still files it away for later discussion—every story about Villanelle is a story she wants to hear, literally full of shit or not.

Villanelle faces her again, and her face is serious.

“I made seven different recordings before I settled on that one,” she admits, jerks her head to the river. “It could have been a lot worse.” 

She shrugs a shoulder. “Besides. You don’t need it anymore. I’m right here now.” She’s right. With the plastic heart, Villanelle only had one chance to compose a perfect message to Eve. Now, her messages don’t have to be perfect, not even close, and she can take as many tries as she needs.

Villanelle sucks in a theatrical breath. “Okay! Stand up straight and face me.”

Eve thinks, finally. Take two. “This feels awfully familiar.”

“The sensation you are feeling is called déjà vu,” Villanelle explains. God, what a little shit.

“Are you going to tell me to leave you again?” Eve retorts.

“Are you going to headbutt me again?” She reaches to tuck a curl of Eve’s hair behind her ear, and keeps her fingers there after the fact. “It was sexy, but it would be kind of inappropriate right now.”

“No.”

“Then also no. Close your eyes.” Eve does. With her eyes closed, her other senses heighten, and she feels the slight trembling in the fingers at her ear.

“Are you scared?” Villanelle’s question comes out in a whisper. The kitchen and the dagger play out again behind Eve’s eyelids. Similar words, vastly different circumstances.

“No. Are you?”

“Extremely.” 

“I kissed you first,” she points out. Maybe appealing to Villanelle's competitive nature will do the trick. “I’m in the lead.”

“You set a terrible example.” Eve really did.

“My eyes are closed this time. We’re doing better already.”

But it turns out that a nervous Villanelle is a rambling Villanelle. “Do you know that feeling, when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, and you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible?”

Eve, with her eyes still shut, considers the woman standing in front of her, the woman clad head to toe in a runway look inspired by Big Bird, quoting When Harry Met Sally at her, whose hands have done so much, and, yes. Eve wants her, wants this. She will take a life cut short with Villanelle than a lengthy, vacant one without. 

“Please shut up and kiss me so we can go back to your hotel and watch a movie.” She hears Villanelle huff out a laugh.

“So bossy,” she complains, but when Eve feels Villanelle’s lips press against hers for the second time, they’re both smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> I know Luke said Eve's maiden name is Park, but this felt right, even though I've never watched Grey's Anatomy. I haven't watched When Harry Met Sally either, but I feel like Miss Villanelle "This is Cher Horowitz I Failed My Driving Test" Astankova definitely has.
> 
> Catch me @she_rough on twitter if you want to chat about the best couple to ever grace television :)


End file.
